


Dark Stains of Shame

by sarasa_cat



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Age Difference, F/M, Guilt, Imagination, Inappropriate Erections, Kink Meme, Masturbation, Sexual Frustration, because that's what knightly knights do, wanking for a good cause
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-15
Updated: 2013-11-15
Packaged: 2018-01-01 16:39:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1046124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarasa_cat/pseuds/sarasa_cat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A dream, a fantasy, and a stain of shame on his blanket, all for a good cause.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dark Stains of Shame

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Written for FF-kinkmeme prompt: "Anonymous would be incredibly happy if someone would write sexually frustrated Basch thinking dirty thoughts about Penelo while he takes care of his own... tension. Kinks are age difference, guilt, inappropriate nature of the "relationship", etc. Bonus points if his thoughts start out somewhat tame and get progressively dirtier. Penelo should NOT be involved."
> 
> Originally posted to AO3 on: 2010-01-07
> 
> Story was written and submitted to ff-kinkmeme in 2008.

 

 **I.  BODIES**  
  
All is darkness.  
  
All is darkness, plus the sounds and scents of life clinging to the edges of existence, clinging to what little remains. In the light of day there are still glimmers of hope but in the pale wash of grey that fades fast to inky black there is nothing left but the chilly truths of desperation, drive, despair, and of doing without.  
  
All is darkness and he is awake. He is awake when he should be lost to the world of dream, much like the slumbering, sighing, snoring bodies lying close by.  
  
He is awake with bones and muscles aching from age and from endless days as a sword that is pledged to defend, if only defenses would hold and let him know a moment’s peace. He is awake with the knowledge that much of his time is passing or has already passed by. He is awake and the hard steel of his blade lies near his leg even when he sleeps.  
  
He lies on his back in the darkness with his entire body shrouded by a thin blanket; even his face is covered, as if he were dead. Everyone sleeps and Basch silently puts to rest something that shouldn’t be awaking: his right hand is inside his cotton shorts and his breath hardly makes a sound. Only his thumb and forefinger move with a steady rhythm.  
  
Another blanket moves; a familiar sniffle and a cough. Basch freezes.  
  
The sounds of sitting up, of stretching, of waking.  
  
He knows who it is and she is hardly more than a couple feet away from his guilty hand.  
  
Penelo usually sleeps with the heaviness of those visiting the dead and often it is he or Fran who wakes her for her shift, but not this night, which means he too should be rising soon to take the last watch.  
  
Basch holds his breath, staying still as a stone and his body is flushed and hot with shame, but here in the night, here in the dark under the cover of his blanket and within the canvas walls of their tent, his shame is silent and it is his and his alone.  
  
He can hear her as she dresses and rolls up her blankets. Then there is the drag and scuffle of her hard leather boots as she retrieves them from the corner of the tent and puts them on. There is the slide and click of her dagger into a scabbard and the soft clitter-clatter of the arrows as she hoists her quiver over her shoulder and buckles the strap across her chest. There is the quiet pad of her footsteps that approach, stop, and gingerly step over his body, and for a moment he can feel her heat pass over him.  
  
All is darkness, except he knows there is a moment of moonlight beyond his blanket and his closed eyes when he hears the tent flap lift. There is the shuffle of her feet followed by the slap of the canvas door flap falling closed, and then she is gone. He strains to listen as her footsteps take her away from the tent and into the night.  
  
Basch is certain that Penelo thought he was sleeping. He is certain of it, but that only heightens the shame that heats his skin like iron within a forge and fire raining down from the sky. His flesh burns with shame that knows no bounds: the shame he bears with his head held high in the hope of protecting others from harm; the shame he hides in the darkness of night while abating desires for all he has lost, never to have again.  
  
He lays still and silent with hands slack across his belly, choking hot air trapped between his nose and mouth and the blanket covering his face. His flesh burns: the heat of hand bombs exploding, ship’s hulls on fire, castle walls set aflame with oil, funeral pyres for dead noblemen and kings.  
  
He is the heat of shame, but this shame has become familiar friend, a familiar foe.

.

She stood in the river not far from their camp; her sun-washed hair is loose but kinked on the ends from habitually keeping it in braids. She laughed after she turned to face him, after a twig snapped under his foot giving him away. And there she stood, nearly knee deep in the river with water as clear as the cloudless blue sky overhead. 

She stood wearing his shirt, which she had laundered, soaking and scrubbing it until it was clean of any trace of sweat or grease or blood. Unstained and returned to white, the wet fabric clung to her slender body.  
  
Why she was wearing his shirt became obvious in a glance: everything else she was washing was still filthy and foul, and when she stood to face him, the damp cloth of his shirt fell around her frame like a young girl’s ruffled summer frock, except she had hardly bothered to button up the front.  
  
“I think it fits me better,” she said, eyeing him coyly as he stood on the bank. “See? This shirt actually buttons up rather than stretching so tightly that it remains open to one’s belly button like it does on you.” She laughed a teasing laugh and wrinkled her nose as she stuck out her tongue like a little girl while her fingers playing with a button that sat between her breasts.  
  
“I have always thought Dalmascan’s don’t mind seeing one’s navel on display.”  
  
The moment these words left his lips, Basch realized how foolish he sounded for a man his age. He wasn’t the least bit surprised when she stared at him, lips parted with a hint of shock and twinge of elation. Her cheeks grew pink as she looked nervously — excitedly — down at her hands and the laundry soaking near her bare legs. Her eyes darted from his shirtless body to the water and back again as her tongue searched for words and her fingers pulled at the ruffled edges of the shirt.  
  
Then she stretched her arms behind her head and her eyes flirted with him while her high breasts hung like two ripe fruits waiting to be plucked as they pressed against wet fabric. That was when Basch noticed she did not carry even a dagger at her hip. He worried that she was overly trusting, not paying full heed to the dangers that surrounded her.  
  
“I think,” she said as thin, sun-browned limbs struck an acutely girlish pose, “that you stole this shirt from some girl and you never bothered to give it back.”  
  
Basch remembered how he stared at her while trying with all his might to hide a creeping grin that dared to take control his face. He folded his arms and spoke as seriously as he could. “I would never do such a thing.”  
  
“Oh, no. Of course not. Not Dalmasca’s brave and daring Basch fon Ronsenburg! He would never be known throughout the land as the knight who steals clothing from innocent girls’ bodies.” Her chin and shoulders took on a jaunty interpretation of his body whenever he stood at attention in the presence Her Highness. Then she folded her arms across her chest as she leaned back, mimicking his stance perfectly. A smirk played across her lips.  
  
Whether she was making fun of him or flirting, he wasn’t certain. He hoped it was only the first but her bare legs and the curve of her hips made him ache for the second; he silently cursed himself for feeling what he felt.  
  
No, she must be making fun of him. The young woman was half his age and he was nothing but an aging fool to entertain such thoughts. She was right to make fun of him and he was wrong to think anything else.  
  
As Basch walked back up the riverbank, he did not turn his head to look at Penelo because her face might provide the answer to a question he didn’t want to know.  
  
His hand gripped the hilt of his sword after he had walked through the brush and high grasses to a sun-warmed rock: a place where he could sit and scout for danger, a place where he could hear her if she called him. From his vantage point, he was able to scan the waving grass and the bluff and the curve of the river, watching them all for approaching danger. Yet, as he looked, he saw nothing but the clear blue of the sky reflected in the water below.  
  
He waited in silence, hiding his shame, waiting for her to return with an armload of wet laundry, waiting and knowing that it would be a while for she would arrive.

  
  
**II. FLIRTATION**  
  
The cool night air drifts through a narrow crack between the tent door and wall as Basch’s fingers run along the edge of the canvas. This affords his eyes a narrow glimpse of their moonlit campsite while he remains on his back, under his blanket.  
  
He cannot see where Fran is standing but guesses from the direction Penelo is walking.  
  
In the pale grey moonlight, he can see her retreating form. Her slight and slender body doesn’t appears girlish, but fey and deadly instead. As he watches her, he wishes she would remain warm and sweet and trusting, much in same the way she looks at him each time she sees something new or something that piques her curiosity. He wants to see her maintain her sense of wonderment as the world of Ivalice grows larger before her eyes, as she realizes all that there is to explore, as she asks him questions while sometimes tugging at his arm.  
  
Now, in the grey moonlight, her steps have deadly confidence. This is something he taught her and she is learning it all too well.  
  
He wishes she were much older than she is now or that she were still a child and not here, not patrolling during a nighttime watch after infiltrating a hostile base of operations. He wishes for anything — anything at all — that will remove the curse of him trying to save her precious sense of hope that she has managed to keep and defend during the clattering march of heavy boots and armored plates conducting midnight raids on Rabanastrian families who horded little more than moldy bread.  
  
She will expect him to get up soon so he can relieve Fran from her shift on the watch, but Penelo has been worrying that he doesn’t get enough sleep so Basch knows that she’ll wait a while before rousting him.  
  
And no one else is awake. Her Highness shifts and tosses in her blankets; she is impatient even in her sleep. Balthier’s snores threaten to outdo Vaan’s, but Balthier’s are a slow and steady sawing where as Vaan’s are punctuated with turns and kicks beneath his blankets, peppered with occasional groans.  
  
Basch lets the bottom inch of the tent’s door drop as he returns his hand beneath his blanket.  
  
He cannot get up yet — not like this, not when he aches to be awash in his shame, when he aches to touch and hold what he should not.  
  
His fingers are cold from the night air as they trail along his chest, brushing across his nipple and along the bump of a scar. He runs his tongue along his bottom lip, which is chapped from nights in the wind and days in relentless heat.  
  
The world around him may be darkness, but as his eyes close while his finger play and pull at the drawstring of his shorts, all the world is sky blue, river blue, and pale green grasses bending in the breeze, and he is silently stepping down the river bank when he catches a glimpse of golden hair hanging loose but kinked on the ends from habitually keeping it in braids.

.

“Oh, no. Of course not. Not Dalmasca’s brave and daring Basch fon Ronsenburg! He would never be known throughout the land as the knight who steals clothing from innocent girls’ bodies.”  
  
He watches her tease him and he’s certain she is flirting.  
  
He should do no more than smile and turn and head back up the riverbank, back to where he has a long, wide view of the area, but her eyes beckon and no one else is here. Her legs are bare beneath the bottom of the ruffled edge of his shirt and she doesn’t even have a dagger resting against her thigh.  
  
“Penelo.” He leans against a sun-warmed rock. “You should at least carry a blade by your side.”  
  
“You’re here.” She drops her hands to her sides and kneels in the water to scrub a bloodstain from the torn sleeve of a shirt. “You always protect me.”  
  
She was right. His sworn, professional duty was to Her Highness but it was Penelo who called him her protector, doing so with a confident smile. Anyhow, she was just as much Dalmasca as the other young women he was trying to return to the throne.  
  
He shouldn’t leave Penelo alone, even though she only needs to shout in order to be heard from the bluffs. He shouldn’t leave her and he knows that she enjoys his company.  
  
After unlacing his boots and freeing his feet, he steps gingerly over hot pebbles along the river’s edge.  
  
She giggles as she watches him. “I knew you would find it nicer here in the river.” Her eyes, round and wide, beckon him to approach as her teeth chew on her lower lip.  
  
The water is warm around his ankles, around his legs, and he isn’t sure if he should help her wash the clothing or if he should just entertain her with a tale.  
  
“Come on.” Her voice sings like water running over rocks and splashing into a shallow pool.  
  
Penelo holds out both of her hands as she faces him and Basch knows that the grin growing on his face must look sheepish, but she smiles as she takes his hands into her own. This could be a holiday during a time in the past, a time when it seemed as if all the world was at peace, a holiday when he was young and allowed himself to believe that anything was possible when he stood in the river with a girl who had sun-browned legs.  
  
Her hands pull him forward as she raises herself up onto the tips of her toes to place a small and familiar kiss on his cheek, but then she lingers and this time he lets her. This time he lets her lips settle on his with a kiss so hopeful and sweet that he believes for just a brief moment that she has never known the pain and loss of the horrors of war. He wants to be as young as her once again.  
  
Her eyes are large, rain-grey, and full of trust; he wants to kiss her.  
  
He wants to kiss her — kiss her again — but he waits for her with his lips parted and a hint of her breath on his tongue. He wants her to kiss him but she drops hold of his hands and flashes a mischievous grin. Before he can respond, her fingers are running along the waist of his canvas, knee-length pants, stopping near the buttons of his fly.  
  
“Penni.” Her name rolls from his tongue with a giggle.  
  
She wears a sassy smile as she catches her tongue between her teeth and firmly grabs him by his belt loops. With a firm tug, she pulls him forward. He’s certain that she’s about to kiss him, about to kiss him firmly on his lips. He is certain of it. Certain. He waits.  
  
“How long has it been since these were last washed?” Her hands tug his waistband back and forth as she laughs, laughter that is the sound of light rain upon the water.  
  
“How long?”  
  
“Yes, because if you don’t take these off, I’ll need to toss you in the river with the rest of the laundry.”  
  
“Those are my only options?”  
  
“Mm-hmm.” Her hands settle upon his waist as she urges him to walk deeper into river. “I don’t need to push you in, do I?”  
  
“Not if I…” He looks at her — her rain-grey eyes, her rosy cheeks, her warm smile — and he knows that she trusts him. With a quick bend and twist at his waist, he scoops her up into his arms. She laughs and kicks her legs as he carries her into deeper water.  
  
She laughs, and one of her arms loops around his neck; that is when he realizes she isn’t wearing a scrap of cloth underneath his shirt and that one of his hands is supporting the smooth, bare skin of her buttocks.  
  
He stops. Gasps. And she kisses him.  
  
She kisses him, her lips slowly playing with his; her tongue tasting and exploring. And she trusts him. She truly trusts him. He can feel the heat of her bare skin and her weight is against his body, her weight held within his arms.

  
  
**III.  FOREPLAY**  
  
The fingertips of his left hand run over his lips and receive attention from his tongue. His right hand presses against the smooth, hard skin of his abdomen.  
  
He quietly gasps in anticipation when his fingers sneak inside his shorts once again.  
  
His cock is hot against his hand as his fingers run down his shaft, down to the coarse hairs that curl around the base, down to his balls which he cups and slowly massages. He tilts his head back and to the side, rubbing his cheek against his pillow as his tongue works slow circles around the first and second fingers of his free hand, sucking softly as he takes his time. His erection stiffens to meet his touch as his finger hovers over the spot just underneath his glans. He teases himself with no more than a fingertip working small circles; he doesn’t wish to hurry.  
  
Two sets of footsteps stop no more a couple of yards from the tent. Basch freezes and holds his breath.  
  
“I hope Balfonheim is better than Archades.” Penelo’s voice hints annoyance.  
  
“In what way?”  
  
“For people who act so refined, they can be pretty gross.”  
  
“Mm,” Fran hummed.  
  
“When I went over to that vendor to buy those bags of roasted chestnuts, remember how crowded it was? Well, this one guy groped me. He put his hand on my ass and squeezed really hard. Then, when I got to the vendor, he stared at my chest the entire time. Excuse me. Eyes up here.” Penelo snorted. “And it isn’t like I have a lot on display.”  
  
“Archadians seem only to have eyes for that they wish to conquer and possess.”  
  
“Yuck. I know.” The sound of feet shuffling in the dirt marks the passage of silence. “If we go back there, I’m going to glue myself to Basch’s side. Nobody — I mean nobody — pulls stunts like that when he’s around.”  
  
All was silent for a few more seconds; Basch lifts his fingers from hot flesh.  
  
“That is not a bad idea.” Fran pauses again. “He is who he is and has his burdens to bear, but he treats you well. I believe that he would never hurt you.” Fran’s voice is soft and melodic and Basch thinks he hears a hint of Penelo’s giggle before they walk away and continue their patrol.  
  
As Basch exhales, the air burns his nostrils during its forceful exit.  
  
He waits. His hand relaxes. And he allows his fingers to rub his balls before returning to his stiff shaft. He feels hot — burning hot — with his guilt and his shame. His erection aches as his hand closes around it: closes firmly without making a single movement to bring him toward a climax.  
  
He inhales and he knows that he shouldn’t do this, but he reaches out and searches for Penelo’s bedroll in the darkness until his hands finds her pillow. When he returns to lying on his back, he presses the pillow to the top of his chest and against his chin. He runs his lips against its edge. Her scent is heavenly.  
  
His hand takes hold of what is waiting as his eyes close, leaving his world of darkness behind.

.

There is an outcropping of sun-warmed rocks where the river is waist deep and one of the rocks makes a perfect reclining seat for the young woman he is carrying in his arms. Penelo’s bare legs hook around his thighs, around the waterlogged canvas that covers his legs, and she keeps him from retreating after she removes her arm from around him.  
  
“You want you shirt back, don’t you?” Her eyes are brimming with trouble as her fingers unfasten the buttons but he does not stop her; he says nothing as he watches her, as his own eyes dart from her face, to her hands, to the flesh she is exposing for him to view.  
  
Now she is a naked nymph posing on the rock with one leg still hooked around him. Her breasts are high but they hang before him like round, ripe fruit waiting for him to nibble their sweet flesh. His breath catches as he looks at her: the smooth curves of her unscarred skin, her red lips, her parted legs. Water droplets glistens in the sunlight like expensive jewels that decorate her body and he knows what he wants as he looks at her, but he cannot, should not, and he should stop her from displaying herself like this. He should clothe her and do nothing more than admire her face, but her nipples are round berries waiting for him to taste. She pushes her chest forward, toward his lips, while her leg remains hooked around him.  
  
He doesn’t move away.  
  
He shouldn’t, he shouldn’t, but he does, and his lips catch hold of one nipple that is standing hard and erect. She sighs as his tongue caresses the round cranberry that tops a small but succulent breast — a round and ripe fruit waiting for him to taste — and then she moans near his ear as he sucks on its flesh.  
  
She gasps with delight as he gives similar attention to her other breast and her hand reaches down between his navel and the line of his belt, fingers slipping between warm skin and wet canvas, hot skin and thin cotton clinging to his wet flesh, finger tips working through coarse hairs the same color as the ones between her own legs, fingers curling around him, hard and stiff.  
  
He mumbles words to her that make no sense in that moment, but it is the right thing to say as he pulls her hand away.  
  
She looks at him, questioning his propriety, while she wears nothing but water droplets upon her skin. But she is too young to understand that her desires will only burden her in the end, burden her in the ways that war should never ruin the life of a woman who is only her age. This is what he tells himself, but he fails to clearly convey it to her as his own heat mounts within his groin.  
  
Incoherent excuses are all that fumble and fall from his tongue until he offers a fair solution in lieu of a frustrating stalemate.  
  
She responds by leaning back and spreading her legs before him. He can smell her — anticipate her — just before her taste is on his tongue.  
  
Penelo always she surprises and confuses him. Her moans are those of a woman who has knowledge of these pleasures while he flattens his tongue over her entry and slowly licks her vulva, yet her quick, tiny, surprised sighs are those of girl experiencing sex for the first time as he sucks on the exposed pearl of clitoris.  
  
Her taste is sweet and heady, and his erection presses and grates as it seeks passage beyond soaked cotton and wet, heavy canvas. As he stops to undress and become as naked as her, she looks at him and sighs a long, stuttering sigh; she reaches for him, reaches to pull him out of the river and onto the rock that supports her reclining body. For a moment he closes his eyes and shakes his head, not wanting to watch as disappointment knits her brows, but he knows this is for the best. Still, he will pleasure her and he will pleasure himself at the same time.  
  
He clutches his erection in one hand as the other carefully parts her lips and holds back the stiff little curls that are the same golden color as his own. Her body glistens in the sunlight as she throws her chin back and closes her eyes, sighing and softly panting as she waits for what he will do next.  
  
He leans close to examine her swollen pearl and the entry below. She has anatomy that suggests virginity but her fragrance and her moans are that of a woman who knows what she desires.  
  
And he knows what she wants and any other soldier would have been on top of her by now, thrusting hard and deep while staking his claim and sowing fields while she writhes in pain more than pleasure, blood staining the rock below.  But not him. Not her. Not like that, and not to leave her nor to capture her as a prize. Not to march onward to other battles as she remains behind, rooted and swollen.  
  
Her bouquet beckons him to kiss her again between her legs and he does. She shivers with delight. His tongue carefully works her entry, gently pushing against the bottom of her narrow opening before returning to wash her clitoris with another wave of pleasure and repeating again and again.  
  
Her legs are wide and she rises and falls in waves, rises and falls to meet him, rises to seek him when he pulls back so he can look at her. She is bliss and he is hard within his hand.    
  
Soon, she is shuddering and her fingers entwine in his hair and keep him pressed against her; she is writhing and bucking and begging him to enter her, she is pulling his hand away from himself and reaching to pull him up and guide him on top of her.  
  
And he wants her.  
  
He wants her and he wants to but he shouldn’t, even though she wants him to take her and seek solace within her embrace. Even though it has been so long, so very long, since a woman has wanted him for more than idle curiosity or access to royal boons and benefits; it has been as long as the lifetime of her own age, and how he wants her even though she has hardly lived as a woman, and by the time she was born he was already a man who has lost his family and his nation.  
  
With the tip of one wet finger he presses at her entry and he watches her eyes widen before returning his tongue to her alluring pearl. Attending to each of her shuddering moans as his cue, he inches deeper. His other hand closes around his shaft; his finger within her mimics the slow thrusts of his pelvis as he licks and sucks her, quickly, slowly, quickly, raising her moans to high cries that become ecstatic convulsions, and he is close, so close, as his hand pumps just below the surface of the water.  
  
He gazes at her flushed face and angelic smile; he’s almost with her, almost.  
  
“Please, Basch, please.” Her hand grips his arm and pulls his hand away from himself, away from the water; she pulls his body up toward hers.  
  
“Penni…” He searches for what little remains of a voice of authority that he lost somewhere along the river’s shore. “Penelo. You still have so much to live for.” He kisses her belly, her chest. “I do not.”  
  
He is nothing but a haggard old swordsman of a dead king; he is nothing more than a man who is best forgotten, a man without even the name of his family to give her. But her lips whisper his name and say things he never wanted to know from her even though he wanted, deeply wanted, and he wanted to know and hear her say these words, even though she is young and full of hope and he is finished and tarnished and ruined.  
  
Slowly, gently, as gently as he can, he kisses between her legs, tasting for injury, but he doesn’t discern the iron tang of blood. Instead, she moans and her fingers rake through his hair while her legs spread wide, and rather than elevate her pleasure once again, his tongue pokes and presses her entry, stretching into her canal as his saliva mixes liberally with her own fluid, soaking into the stubble of his beard.  
  
He stops and rests his chin against her stomach. He looks up at her as she whispers her promises. He understands.  
  
He covers her body with his own.  


  
**IV.  PENETRATION**  
  
His hand is wet with his own saliva when he withdraws his tongue from between the base of two of his fingers; his skin drips with his spittle as he pulls his hand away from his mouth.  
  
All the snoring and tossing and turning within the tent masks the sounds of his breath, his tensions, his desires; his fingers slowly rub his foreskin. He is certain no one knows as he rolls onto his stomach and presses his face into Penelo’s pillow, inhaling her scent and allowing a low moan to escape from deep within him.  
  
Gods above and demons below, he knows all of this is wrong as his lips press against soft cloth that conceals soft, feathery down, as he whispers her name under his breath and conjures her image before him.  
  
But all of this is wrong, all of it: the way he’s taught her to kill with one quick shot to the chest; the way she knows how unsheathe her dagger and move it with one quick stroke to the throat of Archadian soldier’s neck; the way she fire-tips and poison-tips her arrows; the way she silently moves in the dark of the night. All these things she’s learned from him, her eyes wide and trusting while his hand was upon her arm. And only Fara in the heavens above knows why she trusts him, for all her family fell with the kingdom he failed to protect, yet she does and she looks to him as he shows her things he has known since the days before she was conceived.  
  
All of this is wrong.  
  
And this too is wrong as he slips both of his hands underneath him and uses the sticky, wet palm of hand to cup and massage the head of iron-stiff erection.  
  
But Scions of Light and Scions of Darkness, he wants her.  
  
He wanted her the moment his pulse was high while infiltrating Draklor and she readied to cover him each time they turned to clear another corridor. He wanted her when her eyes flashed concern at him as Balthier ignored repeated warnings for caution. He wanted her after he felled five men whose only fault was to exit the wrong door while wielding the blade of the wrong empire. He wanted her — wanted her right then and there on the hard marble floor — after she turned and took down a sixth man that he had not yet seen. He wanted her later that night as she downed a stiff drink to calm her nerves after it was all over.  
  
He wanted her and that was when he could no longer deny it to himself.  
  
And he has surely wanted her for longer, while wanting her to know that he would never be further away than the distance of a shout if not the distance of his arm.  
  
He wanted her all of the times he tried to silence it, all of the times she joked with him and giggled when he winked, all of the times she smiled at him when others glowered, all of the times she cast magicks to heal him with a little more Mist than required. He wanted her and still wants her with an ache that has not ebbed, and he wants her youth and unbroken trust — damn what the world thinks of him when he asks for it. He wants her and he wants to lose himself inside her and let her kisses and words of hope wash him clean.  
  
He wants to lose himself.  
  
He wants to lose.  
  
All of this is wrong: his hands on his stiff cock, his face pressed into her pillow, her image held within his mind, her scent the air that he breaths and the elixir he drinks in.  
  
All of this is wrong, but he knows she is not innocent, as if somehow that makes what he is thinking more acceptable. One time she casually mentioned the things she had done with another man, and perhaps she told him to tease him or to flirt with him or to make him think it was alright for him to want her — not that he should, not that he ever should, nor should he imagine within his mind her experiencing intimate pleasures, not when she is never more than a shout away from him if not the distance of his arm.  
  
Face buried in her pillow, he tightens the muscles in his buttocks and thrusts his pelvis forward. His erection moves between his clasped hands with small, precise jerks, each of his exhalations a muffled grunt following a rhythm that matches the strict tempo of a martial march.

.

Her eyes are wide and round, matching the ‘O’-shaped circle of her mouth as he presses himself against her entry. She is slick and wet but he moves slowly, slowly, slowly, not to cause her any pain. He even holds his breath, filled tight within his chest, except when he makes small moves to push himself forward. She responds with sharp gasps as she stretches to take him in. His muscles strain and shake as he controls himself, holding back the mounting rush of anticipation.  
  
She is brave and beautiful in her innocence as she lies beneath him; her cheeks are ruddy and her large rain-grey eyes gaze into his with naught but trust.  
  
He wants to tell her words he’s afraid to say and make promises he isn’t certain he can keep; he wants to do these things for she already has for him.  
  
He wants to kiss her — kiss that inviting circle formed by her rounded lips — and he wants to sooth those sharp gasps of breath that stab her each time he pushes a little further into her territory.  
  
He wants to kiss her and it is then, when he kisses her firmly, that he feels her defenses loosen. It is then, when he sucks hard on her tongue that she moans with pleasure and something within her relaxes and lets him in. He is in her, slipping inside, and she is panting high, fast, breathy cries. Before he thrusts again, he whispers to ask if she’s all right. Her response is her passion, as she presses her mouth to his and lets him suck hard on her tongue as she pushes herself to take him in until she surrounds him completely.  
  
Now his pelvis presses against hers; now he’s slowly rocking, slowly grinding, her voice a series of singing cries against his ear. When he looks at her, her eyes are still wide and round. He whispers his last coherent words to her before he hears himself panting, moaning, gripping, so close, so close; his face is buried in her neck, in her hair, so warm, so close, so close and Oh!  
  
Oh! Mateus, Mateus, you who fell into hell shouting with a stolen goddess bound to your flesh. Oh, Mateus, in all your corruption, grant the mercies of Scions unto this shunned union. Grant us mercy. Grant me mercy. Grant me mercy for what I have done, what I will do again.  
  
Pulse after pulse after heated pulse of shame rides him as he gasps and moans  but for just this moment he knows nothing more than her trust in him, for she trusts him, she wants him, she trusts him more than any other, and he will bear this shame for her. He will bear it just to know that she trusts him.

  
**V.  AFTERGLOW**  
  
Head turned to the side, Basch catches his breath.  
  
His hands and stomach are sticky with his own fluids and dried saliva. He wipes his cock on the blanket below him; he has already spilt on it once, so a little more makes the stain no worse.  
  
Rolling to his side, he nuzzles his face in her pillow. He wants to remain here until dawn, soaking in her scent as his body is bathed in this glow of warmth, as he drifts into slumber while others are snoring through the last hours of the night.  
  
He wants. He cannot want. What he wishes for, he cannot — should not — have.  
  
But he can, in a way, he can and he smiles to himself as her scent intoxicates his senses.  
  
He has long kept a firm hand and a steely blade between Penelo and the trouble that comes with other men who carry swords and guns and offer young women sips of their wine. Vossler’s leers. Vaan’s curiosity. Balthier’s boredom. Ghis’s perversions. Bergan’s sadism. Jules’ slight-of-hand. Imperial hoplites who use routine inspections as a reason to search for concealed objects underneath young women’s clothing. Men far from home with half a bottle of madhu inside them and a violent ache between their thighs as they walk darkened, cobbled alleys. All of the caravan traders who dare to fetch five thousand gil from buyers in Rozarria for a girl bound in silk ties. He never lets Penelo drift more than a shout away if she isn’t in his sight.  
  
She lets him protects her and she trusts him, wide-eyed and smiling, her hand upon his arm, a giggle as she bumps lightly against his side when he winks at her, a kiss on his cheek when it is safe to stop for the night, the whisper of her voice in the darkness as she tells him all of the things she hopes for once she reclaims her home, the soft sounds of her sleeping just an arm’s reach away.  
  
If he can protect one person from all the horrors that surround them as their world is bathed in darkness, he’ll stain himself with his shame repeatedly; he’ll do anything to keep her safe.

.

This world may be cast in darkness: washes of grey that fade fast to inky black that stain fitful, restless sleep while surrounded by the sighs, snores, and cries of others during chilly, desperate nights. 

In a moment he must get up and dress and relieve Fran from watch. He must fold his arms and affect an air of authority before Penelo skips over to him and pecks a kiss on his cheek in the moonlight.  
  
Even in this darkness, he will not shame her and all of their world is bathed in darkness.  
  
All is darkness and he is awake.  


 


End file.
